“The Dolce Vita era is my favorite,” Debi Mazar says. “There’s all this fabulous eyeliner, light lips and cool, puffy hairdos,” she continues, describing the pop culture moment when Sophia Loren inspired a new standard of beauty in Hollywood, defined by Italian sensuality and a celebration of over-the-top, confident femininity. “I tried to emulate those looks early on.”
The Perfect Partnership
Perhaps it was the love of this aesthetic that led the girl from Queens to later marry an Italian man and eventually move to Tuscany. It’s from her 11th-century home high up in the hills above Florence that Mazar and I connect over Zoom, to chat about her new collaboration with Laura Geller as the brand relaunches its cult favorite Baked Gelato Swirl Illuminator. I can see the traditional terracotta floors and wood beams of the farmhouse, a setting as authentic as the actress herself.
The 61-year-old mother of two knows a thing or two about makeup. In fact, before her turn in front of the camera, she was a fixture in New York City’s club scene and a makeup artist in her own right. “I actually went to beauty school,” she says. Who better to front the playful campaign for Geller’s reinvigorated viral sensation, now formulated to infuse moisture, ideal for mature skin?
Good to Glow
“I have a little bit on now,” Mazar tells me. Indeed, her complexion has a creamy luminescence synonymous with one who takes great care of their skin. “It has a very simple, micro-fine shimmer,” she confides. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, let me put some gold on my cheeks’, it’s not like disco.” The secret to the highlighter is in its hydrating ingredients, including hyaluronic acid, squalene, and aloe vera — “really great stuff to keep your skin moist,” Mazar says. But just as important is the method by which the powder is made. “It’s baked on these terracotta tiles,” the actress explains. “If you think about your plants, you put ‘em in a terracotta pot, which helps maintain the moisture.”
The mom of two also loves Geller’s Balance-n-Brighten Color Correcting Foundation, which also comes in a baked powder. “It comes in every color for whatever race you are. I use the Porcelain or Fair shade, and I use a Kabuki brush to put it on within 30 seconds.” The powder also contains Geller’s mix of hydrating ingredients. “I’ve been a smoker for years, and it doesn’t go into my fine lines,” Mazar reveals. “I have melasma, and it really helps tone it down.”
She’s got more tricks up her sleeve. In an exclusive interview, Mazar shares some of her tried and true beauty secrets.
GRAZIA: Would you describe yourself as a makeup girl?
DEBI MAZAR: Oh, hell yeah. So, I was born a makeup girl. My grandmother was glamorous, and she would have all these wonderful things from Coty, Max Factor, different brands, Aquanet. And I would watch my grandmother do her hair and apply her makeup. My mom was young; she had me at 15. So my mom didn’t really need makeup. And then she got into makeup as she got older, but she had stripper girlfriends and girlfriends that had wigs and eyeliner and fishnets and wore leopard. It was the sixties. I was born in ’64. So I started getting interested in fashion and looks because of the colorful characters that were around me, gay men, glamorous women, and my grandmother, who was very proper, she wore stockings and a bed jacket and a slip, and had beautiful sort of pointed oval natural nails. My grandmother would use rollers in her hair; she had that old-fashioned dryer hood. I ended up going to beauty school.
GRAZIA: And when did you discover Laura Geller?
MAZAR: A lot of my makeup artists would use the brand, and then I noticed a lot of people on social media using it. That’s really cool. One of my friends, Cyndi Lauper, had done something with her. I noticed it on one of her posts, and I think Fran Drescher. She obviously likes New York girls. Then she called me and said, ‘Hey, I’m coming to Tuscany. Would you be interested in a partnership to do a little holiday thing?’ And I’m like, ‘Sure. I mean, why not?’
GRAZIA: Do you use any of the other products?
MAZAR: Her pencils are great. The ones you put around your eyes smear really nicely, so you can just kind of put it on and rub it around and move it. So you just get that two-minute, out-the-door, ‘Hey, I’m fabulous’ look. The mascara is lengthening, it’s thickening, and super, super black. It doesn’t have that tubing thing that falls off in chunks. It just washes off like you cried and you had a dramatic phase. Or you wake up and you have it a little bit under your eyes like an after sex kind of look in the morning, like if you don’t wash your makeup off. I generally wash my face, but sometimes I don’t wash the eyes off.
GRAZIA: Any other unusual makeup tips?
MAZAR: My lips are collapsing, I’m losing volume… so I take a collagen supplement, the one by Spoiled Child. I’ve been taking it for a year, and I have to say, I feel like it’s really helping.
GRAZIA: Those help with nails, too.
MAZAR: I mean, I don’t have nails because I garden. For 40 years I had acrylics. I prefer them. But in Italy, they don’t do acrylics. They do gels. And now the gel’s been banned, but there’s other ones that don’t have that certain ingredient. I can’t be bothered. I don’t like the whole idea of them drilling it down or soaking in chemicals. I’m just like, ‘You know what? I don’t care anymore.’ So I’m off to do a film next week. We’re going to get some press-ons.
GRAZIA: Do you wear makeup when you garden? Do you ever go out without makeup on?
MAZAR: Now I go to the grocery store in a gown sometimes. Sometimes I’m just wearing a tee and some workout pants. I don’t care. I just go with how I’m feeling. With makeup, for the most part, I do a little bit of a tint because my skin’s so uneven. I do not leave the house without my eyebrow. My husband and kids are like, ‘Deb, what are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I’m putting on my eyebrow. Shut the f*ck up. And wait a minute, I got to put on my eyebrows.’
GRAZIA: And how do you do your brows? How many products?
MAZAR: Even Botox wasn’t picking my eyebrows up, so I just said, you know what? Let me just draw them up a little bit. It just makes me look more awake. I put a little bit of highlighter underneath, so I look awake, and then I draw them just up a little bit more and draw the tails out — before it would’ve been down here. I use Anastasia, like a dark brown to start. Then I have this little fine marker from Poco Beauty. It’s from Ireland. I was shooting in Ireland and I found this brand. It’s a great, it draws individual hairs. And then I use the Hourglass Brown mascara.
GRAZIA: You really are a makeup girl! Any other beauty tips?
MAZAR: Maybe just to be kind to yourself as things change. My daughter goes, ‘Mom, how come you’re looking at pictures and using filters? You’re beautiful, and it’s part of your aging.’ And don’t use filters or Facetune to take away certain things. She goes, ‘Everybody, my generation, we like to look more natural and cool. We accept our imperfections, and we accept a little bit of extra fat or big tits or a big, big, big ass or cellulite scars.’ So Gen Z. I f*cking love them. They taught me acceptance. They give me hope because they’re just so full of new ideas and acceptance. It kind of makes me feel old, but also really inspired.
